Vancouver’s once meteoric housing market, besieged by regulation and taxes, is getting pummelled. It’s like tweaking the old adage to “what rises the highest, falls the hardest.” The factors that propelled it to the stratosphere have, one by one, been dismantled and perhaps a new, healthier reality will take shape.
Luxury real estate, once propped up by Chinese and speculative money, is stagnating as its lifeblood looks for friendlier pastures. The foreign buyers tax of 20 percent—up from 15 percent when first introduced in August 2016—has almost completely shut down purchases by foreigners, says Phil Moore, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).
